Like You'll Never See Me Again
by A. Tenmeadows
Summary: AU. Rachel is diagnosed with central nervous system lymphoma. In the months the doctors estimate that she has left, Santana vows to make her girlfriend's last days her best. Santana/Rachel, 3-shot. Femslash. Don't like, don't read.
1. Do You Know Until You Lose It

**Hey, guys! I had the idea for this fiction yesterday, because I just recently had lunch with a friend whose cancer is in remission. She's a Music major, and she told me that during her chemotherapy, her boyfriend sang her 'Like You'll Never See Me Again' by Alicia Keys every night before she went to bed. **

**That's love, guys. That's love. **

**Enjoy. : )**

It started with the headaches.

"I'm just going to go lie down, 'Tana," Rachel says to me as she shakes two pills from the ibuprofen bottle on the counter. "This one's pretty bad."

I huff indignantly at her from my spot on the sofa. It's been weeks since we've passed any extended amount of time together; partially because of her rigorous rehearsal schedule for her lead as Eva Peron in Broadway's Evita, and partially because whenever she's been able to come home to our upper Manhattan studio apartment, she's had ear-splitting headaches that force her to retreat into our bedroom as soon as she sets foot in the door. I miss the old Rachel; the one who couldn't wait to get home and tell me about her day. I miss the Rachel who'd surprise me at the firm with lunch when she knew I was working so hard I'd forget to eat. I miss the Rachel who lived for the Saturdays that we used to spent making love against every flat surface in our apartment.

I want that Rachel back, because she's been gone for longer than I can take.

I lean back and rest my sock-covered feet on the glass coffee table in front of me before I lift my bottle of O'Doul's to my lips again. I did enough drinking in high school to last a lifetime, so I gave it up during my first year of college. And, because she knew I couldn't handle being sober alone, Rachel gave it up to make me happy. It was, hands down, the most thoughtful thing anyone's ever done for me, and it made me fall even more in love with her.

"Alright, babe. Dinner's in the microwave if you're feeling up to it," I call to her before she shuts the door to our room.

_Or not_, I think to myself as I pick up the television remote and turn the volume down on the Hardcore Pawn re-run that's playing so as not to disturb her. When I glance at the analog clock above the screen, the digital numbers stare back at me.

_5:36. She didn't even make it to six o'clock this time_, I sigh in defeat.

Rachel continues to insist that the headaches are a result of the stress she's under due to her job, but even I know that increasingly frequent headaches should not be so easily dismissed. I know that my girlfriend doesn't like doctor's offices because of a bad experience with a nurse and an another patient's open blood sample back in our freshman year of high school, but if the headaches don't stop, I'll have no choice but to drag her in.

* * *

Next came the memory loss.

"Santana, I swear on my collection of Barbra Streisand CDs that I fed him already," Rachel insists vehemently while she lugs the large bag of IAMS dog food out of the pantry. "I fed him before we left for the gym."

When one of our neighbors asked if we could look after her two year old German Shepherd while she went on a cruise through the Mediterranean, Rachel and I had said yes with no hesitation. I thought it would be a good chance for us to test our ability to care for something as a team. Honestly, I believed it would help me figure out if we're mentally and physically prepared to have kids. I'm more than ready, but I think Rachel would be more content with a dog, judging by the way she's been interacting with Gatsby (our neighbor is an English major at NYU).

I quirk my eyebrow up when she mentions going to the gym. Rachel and I haven't worked out together in three days because of our demanding work schedules. When I turn to her, her eyebrows are furrowed in frustration as she pours the dry dog food into Gatsby's blue plastic bowl. This isn't the first time in the past few weeks that Rachel's been having these little slip-ups. Last Monday night, she'd sworn she put her black flats on the floor next to the front door. I'd had to remind her that she'd let one of her castmates borrow them last month. Rachel had seemed startled by her mental faux pas, but she'd laughed and brushed it off as a product of exhaustion. I had too…

Until it happened again at Sylvia's yesterday when we went to lunch. Rachel had been adamant about the fact that she'd paid the bill before I came back from the restroom, but when we got up to leave the restaurant, the waiter stopped us before we made it out the door and demanded that we settle the tab for our meal. Rachel had been incredibly insulted and stomped her foot like a petulant child before rattling off our lunch orders… that we'd gotten when we went to Lorenzo's two weeks ago.

"Babe, are you okay?" I ask her gently when she collapses on the couch beside me. I throw a comforting arm around her and let her snuggle into my side. Gatsby pads his way over to us and rests his head in her lap as a sign of his own concern.

"Yes, 'Tana, I'm fine. I'm just exhausted. All this work on the show is really wearing me out," Rachel murmurs against my neck.

"Right," I nod slowly and rest my cheek on the top of her head. "Of course, _mi corazon._"

She snakes her arm across my waist and buries her face into the juncture between my neck and shoulder. She proceeds to fall asleep quickly and soundly while Showtime softly advertises the upcoming season of The Real L Word, leaving me to mull over her preposterous response to the fact that she's losing time and worry about what the true cause might be.

* * *

But the seizure was, by far, the most frightening.

"Rachel, I'm home," I call through our apartment as I toss my keys down on the kitchen countertop.

"I'm in the bathroom. Be out in a minute," I hear her yell from our en-suite bathroom.

I kick off my tangerine Steve Madden heels, a gift from Rachel for my twenty-first birthday, next to the door and pad across the hardwood floor to the refrigerator in my bare feet. I tug the door open and grab the frosty green neck of an O'Doul's bottle, using the bottle opener on my key ring to pop it off. Taking a large gulp, I shirk off my black suit jacket and drape it over the arm of the sofa.

"Babe, what do you want for -"

Before I can finish my sentence, I hear a sickening crack from the bathroom, followed by a firm thud. The beer bottle that hung in my grasp now clatters to the hardwood where I once stood as I race through our small bedroom and into the bathroom. The sight I'm met with nearly sends me into hysterics: Rachel, spread eagle on the white linoleum flooring, her eyes rolled back as her small nude body convulses violently. My hand fumbles for the iPhone I know is in the pocket of my dress pants and when I finally grasp it, my fingers hurriedly tap out the emergency number on the dial pad.

"911, what is your emergency?" A pleasantly calm sounding woman answers after the second ring.

"My girlfriend is having a seizure and I don't know what to do," I sob brokenly into the phone. On the floor, Rachel shows no signs of coming to, and this makes me cry even harder.

_I need her to be okay_, I think desperately. _She has to be okay. I can't live without her._

"Alright, sweetheart, I'm sending emergency services to your phone's location. Has she sustained any injuries?"

When my eyes scan her petite naked frame, I notice that she has a large bruise and furiously bleeding laceration above her eyebrow from where her forehead made contact with the countertop. This revelation causes a new wave of panic to settle into my chest.

"Yes, she has a cut on her head that's bleeding pretty profusely," I tell the woman shakily.

"Okay, I need you to staunch the blood flow first. If you can, find a towel or a blanket, fold it so that it's about four inches thick, and then press it firmly against the wound."

I rush to her side and drop to my knees, taking her head into my lap and stroking her hair, still damp from the shower she just took. Tears smear my mascara down my cheeks as I look down at the one I love and watch her body twitch and spasm uncontrollably. I've never felt so helpless in my life.

I grab the fluffy white towel from the back of the toilet on the other side of the bathroom and follow the operator's instructions. My girlfriend's blood immediately soaks through the towel, the angry red spot expanding by the second. I haven't prayed in years, but right now, as I'm on the cusp of losing the one girl who's loved me from the beginning, through every awful thing I said or did to her… I'm definitely looking for help from The Big Man Upstairs.

"Alright, done. What now?" I ask the woman on the phone after taking a few deep calming breaths to clear my head.

"Is there a toothbrush or a spoon nearby? We need something for her to bite down on so that she doesn't bite her tongue or swallow it."

I hurriedly grab Rachel's toothbrush from its place beside the sink and jam the flat end between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Her teeth lock onto it and bear down hard as she continues to tremble hard, and I'm forced to hold it in there so that she doesn't accidentally shake it loose.

Just as I'm about to ask the operator for my next set of instructions, I hear the sirens outside on the street screaming toward our building. The next thing I remember is two burly looking EMTs bursting into the apartment and shooing me out the door. They offer to let me ride in the ambulance with Rachel, and I accept immediately. By the time they slide the stretcher into the ambulance, they've given Rachel a shot to stop her seizing, but she's still unconscious, and one of the EMTs tells me that her heart rate is still erratic. As the emergency vehicle careens down the busy streets of New York City, I hold my girlfriend's hand to my mouth and whisper sweet promises into her skin.

_I love you._

_I need you._

_You'll be fine._

_They'll fix you._

_I'll never let you go._

**There will be a second part, so stay tuned.**


	2. The Present Is A Gift

**Greetings, Earthlings! Here's the second installment of Like You'll Never See Me Again.**

**Enjoy! : )**

It's not until two days after Rachel's admitted to Bellevue Hospital Center that I learn the reason for all of this. Rachel hasn't been conscious for any of the ordeal, and I count my blessings for that. She'd have been worried out of her wits. As my girlfriend sleeps soundly in the hospital bed next to me, the handsome looking head oncologist glides into her room. Dr. Wilson calls it central nervous system lymphoma. He tells me that when his fellows conducted a CT scan on my girlfriend's sedated body, they found a total of six malignant tumors in the frontal and parietal lobes of Rachel's brain. He explains that her case is very rare, seeing as CNS lymphoma rarely manifests itself in someone so young and with such a healthy immune system. He starts to ramble on about what a medical mystery this is, and I finally, I've had enough.

"Stop talking about the love of my life like she's a science experiment and just tell me how much time she has!" I grouse at him angrily, causing him to recoil as if I've thrown hot water on him.

"Her case is very advanced… Even with chemotherapy, her chances are slim –"

"Give me a fucking number!" I'm practically shaking with rage now. If this doctor doesn't tell me what I need to know, I'm going to spend Rachel's last days in jail for his murder.

"Miss Berry's probably got about ten to eighteen months to live."

The fury evaporates into numbness when the terrible sentence leaves his Chapstick coated lips. I rip my tear-filled gaze from the bumbling doctor and grasp Rachel's hand when my eyes run across her peaceful face. I wish I didn't have to wake her up. I wish I didn't have to tell her that she's going to die.

I don't know which of us will shed more tears.

* * *

"'Tana?"

Rachel's voice is raspy and hoarse when she finally regains consciousness. The nurses weaned her off of her assortment of sedatives early this morning, and I haven't left her side since, because I promised myself that I'd be there when she woke up. I wouldn't let her open her eyes to a hospital room unless I was at her bedside holding her hand.

I give her a watery smile when those innocent chocolate brown eyes stare up at me. "Hey, baby. How are you feeling?"

"Fine, I guess," she says softly while she looks around the room to get her bearings. "But why are we in the hospital? Did something happen? Are you alright?"

Leave it to Rachel to worry about me when she's the one laid up in a bed. "I'm fine, Rach, I promise. We're not here because something happened to me."

When she catches the way I word my last sentence, her eyes widen in understanding. "Something happened… to me?"

I can't hold back my sobs anymore, and hot, frustrated tears trek down my cheeks. I'm so pissed off and hurt that this is happening. Rachel and I spent years hating each other, and now that I finally pulled my head out of my ass and let myself fall in love with her, she's going to die of this stupidly rare cancer that no one's ever even heard of.

"Rachel… baby… They found tumors. In your brain… that's why you've been getting those headaches and forgetting things a lot lately. That's why you had the seizure in the bathroom."

Rachel's big brown eyes fill with fear. Pregnant teardrops begin to roll down her pale cheeks while her breathing turns to short, choppy breaths. Her hand searches for mine on top of the pastel blue hospital-issue blankets, and I lace our fingers together tightly as small tremors shake her petite frame. "It's not going to be okay, is it?"

I wish I could lie and tell her yes. I wish I could hold her and tell her that it's all a bad dream. She sounds so scared, like a little kid curled up in bed to hide from the monster in their closet. I've never heard Rachel sound so small and timid, and that breaks me apart even more. This thing has already shattered her… and a shattered Rachel means a shattered me.

* * *

The grief counselor Dr. Wilson referred us to the day Rachel got her diagnosis, Dr. Nolan, had suggested we create a 'Bucket List'. Essentially, his task was for us to compile a list of things Rachel wanted to do before she died, and do them in the order she arranged them. So that's what we're doing right now as we sit on the living room couch in our apartment, one month after Rachel's release from the hospital.

"I've never ridden a roller coaster before," Rachel whispers to me from her place on the sofa. Her head is tipped back and her eyes are closed, a sign that her energy level is starting to wear down. She's had less and less endurance since she start her first round of chemotherapy two weeks ago, so her role in Evita went to her understudy (something she's downplayed from the start, but I know it kills her to know she'll never be onstage again).

"Alright," I say quietly, adding it to the list. "What else?"

"I've never gotten a tattoo," she chuckles wryly. "I could never think of anything I'd want to be stuck with permanently."

"What, no 'Born To Be Wild' ink?" I wink at her before taking her weak body into my arms and kissing her temple. "I'm surprised you never got anything done. You're definitely adventurous enough."

"Will you get one with me when we go?" Rachel smiles against the plane of my neck as she snuggles her small frame against mine.

"Of course, sweetheart. I'd do anything for you," I tell her tenderly.

I don't care if that makes me whipped. I mean every word.

* * *

"I'm so excited, 'Tana! It's going to be so much fun!" Rachel bounces up and down like a little kid as we stand in line for the Cyclone roller coaster at the famous Coney Island amusement park. Ordinarily, she'd be complaining about the low-grade hygiene and poor selection of vegan-friendly food, but I've found that the strange thing about having a fixed amount of time left is that the smaller things no longer matter. Rachel's living a big picture life, and I'm living it right along with her.

"Calm down, Rach," I chuckle at her enthusiasm. "You'll shake your bandana off."

She's already started to lose copious strands of her long silky brown locks, so she's taken to wearing my red Cheerios bandana tied around her head. It makes her look even more like a small child, but she doesn't mind. She says she loves having a little piece of me with her when she goes to chemotherapy or to the clinic to get her medication. She says it makes her feel safe.

When we finally reach the front of the line, Rachel is practically shaking the concrete. The bored looking teenager that's working the ticket podium just stares at her and sighs before taking her tiny red ticket and letting her race past him. I laugh and shake my head, handing the floppy haired kid my own ticket and sliding into the car beside my girlfriend.

"You sure about this, baby?" I ask her as the ride's attendant pulls the rusty lap-bars down over our knees. "We don't have to do it."

Rachel just beams back at me with her one hundred watt smile that makes the New York sun shine even brighter. "I'm sure, 'Tana. Dying is a day worth living for, after all."

As the coaster takes off, I can't help but grin back at her in the sunshine. I've never known bravery like hers, and I doubt I ever will again.

* * *

We stand at the glass counter of the hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor a few blocks from our apartment, a small place called The Rising Dragon. Rachel is flipping through the design binder in front of us, stopping to smile at me when she stumbles across one she likes. So far, her favorite drawings have been of stars. Large stars, small stars, elaborate stars, simple stars… I chuckle a little at her childlike fascination with the shape. Rachel had always explained to me that her affinity for stars was a metaphor for her rise to stardom on Broadway. But I have developed a new meaning for them over the years. Rachel is the one that guided me out of the darkness after everyone I knew left me… my family, most of my friends, Brittany. Through it all, it was the shining light in Rachel's big brown eyes that brought me to where I stand today. I'd be nothing without her.

"'Tana, I want this one," Rachel says definitively, gesturing to one of the more decorative stars on the page. It's a tiny thing, only about an inch in diameter. It's decorative and feminine… it suits her.

"Alright, baby," I smile tenderly back her before I lean down to kiss her forehead gently. "Do you want to pick out one for me, too?"

"I want you to get one like mine," she whispers, wrapping her arms around my waist and nuzzling her face into my throat. "Just so you can remember me."

Tears spring to my eyes at that. My own arms wind their way around her slight frame. She's so thin now that the chemotherapy is really kicking in. She's been sick almost every morning for the past two months, and she's in constant pain. The drugs her doctors prescribed for her have thrown her body chemistry all out of sorts, so much so that we've practically got a full pharmacy in our bathroom.

"I could never forget you, Rachel," I murmur into the now threadbare bandana that covers her mostly bald head. "I love you more than anything in the world."

"You two are a sweet couple," the tattoo artist standing behind the counter grins at us. He's gruff looking, with a few piercings here and there. His brightly colored tattoo sleeve on his left arm looks like it took a lot of time and pain. Sliding the binder away from Rachel, he marks the design with a bright pink Post-It flag and looks back up at us. "So where do you want it?"

Rachel gazes up at me with the same sparkle that's been in her eyes since the days when we used to walk the halls of William McKinley High School. "Right here," she tells him, splaying her fingers across my chest on top of my Marvel Avengers t-shirt. "Right above the heart." I can't help the grin that splits my lips. I love this girl.

"You got it. And just for you, Little Warrior, they're on the house."

I quirk my eyebrow up at him skeptically, but Rachel lays her hand on my arm. "'Tana, look." She nods to the man's tattoo sleeve and gives him a bright smile.

After a few moments, I finally see what she's referring to. On the muscular tattoo artist's forearm, among the tribal swirls and dragon claws, is a small violet shaded ribbon. Just beneath it, closer to his meaty wrist, the word 'Warrior' is written in neat cursive.

"Hodgkin's Lymphoma," he explains in a voice that's raspy and hoarse. "Diagnosed in 2009, went into remission this past May. This haircut was more out of necessity than choice."

He points to his own bald head and laughs. Rachel laughs too, and it's the first time she's done so since her diagnosis. Sure, she's chuckled and giggled, but it's been months since she's let loose one of her body-shaking, shoulder-quivering laughs. I'm so relieved to see it, because that means that my Rachel, my darling Rachel, is still there. She hasn't given herself over to this disease that's ravaging her system. Her spirit isn't broken, and this simple fact makes happy tears fall down my cheeks.

Rachel shirks off her own bandana and skips hurriedly around the edge of the counter. "'Tana, take a picture! Take a picture!"

I chuckle at her antics and shoot the artist an apologetic glance. He simply shrugs it off and gives my iPhone a goofy smile as I snap the photo. Seeing Rachel and the man's bald heads gleaming in the fluorescent light of the tattoo parlor, silly grins plastered to their faces and his big, strong arms draped around the shoulders of her large black hoodie, my heart inflates like a beach ball. Just for this moment, it doesn't feel like she's dying. Just for this moment, cancer is only a word.

Just for this moment, she's herself again.

* * *

"Santana," Rachel keens desperately when I nibble her earlobe and smile. "You're killing me."

I let out a breathy laugh and move to straddle her hips. I rest my weight high on her waist so as not to crush her pelvis and take her face in my hands. The glow of the moon makes her expressive brown eyes so deep and rich that I'd be more than content to just sink into them, never to be seen again.

"We can stop if you want to, baby," I whisper in the narrowing space between us. But her hands on my hips, tugging my lips back to hers tell me that she has no intention of stopping.

Rachel devours my lips with a single-minded focus that shakes me to the core. She pours every drop of herself into each swipe of her tongue against mine, and I give of myself just as fervently. Our connection is so strong and powerful, I'm sure that I can hear tidal waves rising out of the sea on the other side of the world. Time slows down and speeds up at the same time, and eventually the physics our bodies create stops it altogether. I let Rachel's bottom lip slip between my own and begin a cycle of alternating sucks and nips. Rachel moans deeply, and it's the next moment that makes my heart explode: she grinds her previously stationary hips into mine.

"I'm wet for you, 'Tana. Make love to me…"

Her words ignite an insatiable fire in me, and I push her back against the pillows and attack her mouth with determination, taking a breath only to tug off my own cotton shirt and toss it on the bed behind us. I let my tongue explore the sharp angles of her collarbone and the smooth plane of her neck, occasionally sucking or biting the skin. I've wanted to make love with her since her diagnosis, but she's refused all of my physical advances, saying she wasn't beautiful enough to be with me anymore.

I know she's drastically underweight, and the chemotherapy is zapping her strength like Krytonite drains Superman, but I've been waiting months to show her that she's still just as gorgeous now, with her head shaven and her body frail, as she was when I first met her all those years ago.

My fingers trace patterns across the supple skin of her toned, bare stomach, eliciting a moan from us both as I commit the territory to memory just as I have a million times. I slide down her thighs and lift her t-shirt above her breasts, allowing me to palm each mound with an expert hand. She bucks up into my core, and my head tips back as I whine at the intensity of the pleasure. My candy apple red bra has a front clasp, so rather than do the obvious thing and take it off with her hands, Rachel presses her face into the valley of tepid skin between my breasts and undoes the plastic clasp with her teeth. I growl and hold her head to my chest as her hands roam the burning hot flesh of my back. When the bra is a forgotten thought on the floor of our bedroom, I push her shoulders down so that she's forced to lie flat. I lightly grip her wrists and pull them above her head before pecking her lips affectionately.

"Just let me love you," I murmur against her throat. She nods to let me know that she agrees.

She's able to hold back the tears when I remove my t-shirt and shower her ribcage with kisses, one for each inch of the scar tissue her central line left her with. She's able to hold back the tears when I pull up the elastic hem of her black Nike sports bra and use my tongue to lick, tease, trace, and toy with the erogenous skin of her perfect breasts. And she's able to hold back the tears when I slowly scoot backward toward the end of our bed, bringing the waistband of her sweatpants with me.

But they finally slip out from the creases of her eyelids when I swipe my tongue up the length of her slit.

I part her, play with her, and penetrate her, all in one fluid motion. I purse my lips, creating a deliberate suction on her pleasure center that causes her to buck her hips up into my talented mouth. My fingers begin a firm massage on the tops of her thighs as I pull her closer. Her ecstatic moans fill the room while she holds the sheets in a white-knuckled grip. I can feel her trying to hold back her orgasm, because we both don't want this miraculous experience to end. My goal was only to make her feel beautiful… And I believe I accomplished that the moment I kissed the long scar between her perfect breasts.

"That's it, love," I whisper into the skin of her inner thigh as two of my fingers work small, tight circles into her pleasure center, spiraling her rapidly toward the edge. "Let go and just feel."

My words send my love careening over the edge of ecstasy and deep into the depths of euphoric bliss. Rachel screams my name to walls of our bedroom, not giving a damn if our neighbors heard us or not. More tears cascade down her face as she begins to come down from her personal high, and her lips curve into her first truly content smile in weeks. I pull a blanket over her naked, sweaty body as the aftershocks continue to ripple through her. I rain kisses over Rachel's forehead, her eyelids, her tear-stained cheeks, and finally, her mouth, spending a considerable amount of time on the latter. As we kiss languidly, reveling in the sensation of being able to touch each other skin to skin, I feel Rachel's own fingers find their way between my own supple thighs. I, however, catch her wrist before she can make contact with my most intimate parts.

"Tonight was about you, Rachel," I murmur into her ear as I rest my head on her shoulder.

"But-"

"Don't worry, baby," I chuckle warmly. "You can have your fun in the morning."

She snuggles into me and rests her flushed face against my sternum, sighing contentedly as sleep begins to claim us both. It's the most at peace we've felt since this hell began… And it's the last peaceful moment we'll share while she's on this Earth.

**AN: Stay tuned for Chapter 3, coming up next.**


	3. Cherish What We Had

**Since the last chapter was kind of long, I decided to post Rachel's final moments with Santana in a third chapter.**

**Warning: there is a great deal of sadness in the words that follow. That being said, enjoy at your own risk.**

Fourteen months, two weeks, four days, three hours, and thirty seven minutes.

That's how long Rachel got to live after she was diagnosed with central nervous system lymphoma.

We got to ride a roller coaster. We got to get matching tattoos, right over our hearts… just where Rachel wanted them. We got to make love together in the warmth of the home we built.

But we also did one more thing that wasn't on Rachel's list… Although, I don't think she was disappointed in the addition.

* * *

She's not going to last much longer.

The doctor knows it, I know it, but most heartbreaking of all, Rachel knows it.

She's laying in a bed similar to the one she was in when they delivered the news of her cancer. That day has made us both despise hospitals with a burning passion, and Rachel has made it very clear to me that she does not want to die in a place that holds such horrifying memories for us. She's told me that she wants to go home on a number of occasions today, but the oncologists tell us she's too unstable to be moved.

She's not even strong enough to pout the way she used to.

I've been by her side since the ER staff admitted her at two o'clock this morning. I was by her side when her dads came in and cried next to her for hours. I was by her side when Kurt came in with flowers and red-rimmed eyes. I was by her side when Finn Hudson, fresh off the plane from Afghanistan and still in his uniform, sat by her bed and apologized for everything he'd ever put us through.

But everyone's gone now. Hiram and Leroy went back to their hotel to get some sleep. Kurt went back to his apartment to get a change of clothes. Finn went to stay with Quinn and Puck for the night. Rachel's eyes are closed, and she looks so peaceful that I almost don't wake her. We're all alone in her hospital room, no sound between us but the robotic tones from her heart monitor. I take a deep breath and muster up all my courage before I speak.

"Rachel?" I whisper tenderly. "Wake up, baby."

She opens her eyes slowly, her pale, gaunt face drawing up into what's left of her radiant smile. "What is it, 'Tana?"

I sigh sadly at the tired tone of her voice, and I know that she's worn out from fighting. I know that she won't have the strength to fight much longer, so I'll have to do this quickly.

"I want to ask you a question," I tell her calmly before reaching into the front pocket of the canvas satchel I brought with us. After I rummage through the pill bottles and pairs of clean socks, my fingers grasp the velvet Neil Lane box. I pull it out and hold it in my lap, my eyes filling with hot tears.

"Oh, Santana," Rachel murmurs so quietly that I almost don't hear her. She reaches for my hand and lets her thin fingers hold onto it weakly. "Ask me. Please ask me."

I swallow the hard lump in my throat and choke out the words I've been waiting to ask her since our first kiss. "Will you marry me, Rachel Barbra Berry?"

Rachel closes her eyes and pregnant tears stream down her face. She tips her head back against the firm pillow behind her, letting a broken sob wrack her frail body. "Yes."

I take her small ring finger and slide the princess cut diamond ring, now two sizes too large, but hers all the same, onto it. Tears run down my own cheeks as I watch the love of my life crumble in front of my eyes. This cancer, the seventh circle of Hell, has finally broken her spirit. The weight of it is finally crashing down on her, and all I wish is that I was lying in that bed instead of her. Women like Rachel aren't supposed to die young… Hell, women like Rachel aren't supposed to die at all. Women like me, in all my fucked up glory, are the ones who are supposed to die slowly and painfully in a puddle of their own self-pity.

"Can you hold me, 'Tana?" Rachel asks in a voice that sounds like a child huddled in a corner during a thunderstorm.

Without hesitation, I climb onto the bed next to her and take her small, fragile frame into my arms. She lays her head against my collarbone and continues to cry harder. Our sobs go on for the better part of an hour before I can find my voice again.

"Sing to me, Rachel. Please?" I whisper pleadingly. I know that the one thing I'll miss the most about Rachel is the way that her voice can move mountains. It can build me up and tear me apart, caress me softly and bowl me over, all in the span of one song. I feel her simply nod, and the most beautiful voice comes forth from her dry lips. I find comfort in the fact that this disease may have crushed her, but her voice, her gift, is still clear as a bell.

"_If I had no more time,  
No more time left to be here,  
Would you cherish what we had?  
Was it everything that you were looking for?"_

Her song choice only forces me into heavy, hard sobs. I've never let myself love anyone the way I love Rachel. I've never felt more at home, more complete, more appreciated than I do with her. She took my broken heart and put it back together piece by piece, forging a bond of love that can bring the sky down and raise the seas. She's my best friend, my first true love, and my soulmate. I don't know what I'll do without her… To be quite honest, I don't know that I want to live. I don't know that I want to go on without those hundred watt smiles, or those tender fingers that soothe me after a long day of all the world's hell, or those warm kisses that burn me and freeze me all at once.

"_If I couldn't feel your touch,  
And no longer were you with me.  
I'd be wishing you were here,  
To be everything that I'd be looking for."_

I pull Rachel closer to me, as if my tightening my hold can keep her tethered to this Earth. Her tears soak through the thin material of the NYADA t-shirt she loaned me after her first semester.

We don't have much time left. We both know that. But Rachel, the performer to the end, just keeps right on singing with the same fire and passion that I fell in love with.

"_I don't want to forget the present is a gift.  
And I don't want to take for granted the time you may have here with me.  
'Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed."_

I tug the flimsy fabric of the hospital gown Rachel's wearing down so that I can see the star tattoo we got six months ago. I trace it lovingly and smile as I feel the gentle pulsating of her soft heartbeat beneath the ink. No matter what may separate us, we will always have this. These little moments together will take me through the rest of my years. I know I'll never love another like her, but I know that she'll want me to love again. She'll want me to live, to see the world the way she did; with a childlike wonder that makes nothing impossible. Rachel will want me to go on. And so help me God, I'll do it for her.

"_So every time you hold me,  
Hold me like this is the last time.  
Every time you kiss me,  
Kiss me like you'll never see me again.  
Every time you touch me,  
Touch me like this is the last time.  
Promise that you'll love me,  
Love me like you'll never see me again."_

Rachel is out of breath now, but a weak smile graces her face as she looks up into my own watery eyes. We just lose ourselves in each other's eyes, and after a while, she presses our foreheads together lightly and cups my cheek in her hand. I reach up and stroke the back of her hand with my thumb, and I know what's coming next. We have to say goodbye now.

""Tana," Rachel murmurs brokenly, her voice marred by sobs. "It's time."

"No, Rachel," I beg her desperately, my eyes screwed shut against the pain I feel all over my body. "Please don't leave me."

"I'll never leave you, Santana. Remember?" she smiles before reaching up and pulling down the collar of my shirt. She reveals the star I have tattooed on my chest to match hers, but mine is wrapped in a grey ribbon for brain cancer, with the word 'warrior' written beneath it in neat cursive. "Be a warrior, 'Tana. Fight. Fight for me."

"Just a little longer, baby. Just a few more minutes," I plead, but I know it won't make any difference. Be it now, in ten minutes, or even ten months, I'll have to say goodbye. And I know Rachel's so tired of fighting. She's so tired of being strong… I just want her to rest.

"I love you, Santana Lopez-Berry," she grins happily. I don't even argue with her about why my name has to come first, because it doesn't matter. I'll take her name in any order she'll give it to me, simply because it's hers.

"I love you too, Rachel Berry-Lopez."

The beautiful twinkle in her chocolate brown eyes dims slowly, and her eyelids gradually slip closed. Her breathing evens out, and her heart rate drops until the monitor behind her head displays a continuous flat line.

And just like that… she's gone.

* * *

I have a daughter now. Her name is Raquel, and she just turned three years old. She watches Funny Girl twice a day, even though she has no idea what the premise of the film is. She sings her little heart out to every song on the radio, even though she has no idea what the words mean. And she throws her little temper tantrums, complete with heel stomp and storm-out. She's so much like Rachel that it scares me a little.

But one thing I hadn't been counting on was finding the homemade DVD hidden among the films on the bookshelf in our living room. I'd taken it out and put in into the disc drive on my laptop, thinking it was a video project I'd made in college or something of the like. Instead, Rachel's face, complete with rosy cheeks and long, silky brown hair adorned my screen. She sits on the same couch I'm sitting on now, smiling brightly at the camera.

"Santana," she says to me through the screen. "By the time you see this, I'll probably be long gone. The doctors diagnosed my cancer about two months ago, and right now, you're out getting groceries and my medication. I wanted to leave you this, because there's something you should know... I love you more than life itself, Santana Lopez. I carry you in my spirit, and even though you don't believe in the sort of thing, I pray for you more than I pray for myself. If we're apart for more than an hour, my mind won't let me stop thinking about you. So, if I don't get to do it before the end, I want to ask you a very important question."

She stops to reach over to her left, and I can see that she's wearing the same blue NYADA t-shirt that she cried into the night she passed away. Tears run freely down my face as I stare at the Rachel on my screen. She seems so full of life, so happy, so healthy… She seems so at peace. And that's all I could ever want for her, wherever she is. I hope that she's found peace, and I hope that when I leave this planet, I can see her again. When her face returns, she's holding a Diamonds Direct black velvet ring box.

"Santana Francesca Lopez… Will you marry me?"

She pries the box's lid open, and a beautiful silver band gleams in the warm glow of the lamp in the room. She grins radiantly, and my heart squeezes inside my chest.

"Mami?"

I jump at my daughter's sudden presence, and she skips over in her sock feet from her place in the doorway to stand in front of me. "Why you crying, Mami?"

I laugh heartily at her curious expression, her eyebrows furrowed and her tongue sticking out in concentration. I pause the video to gesture for her to come over and sit on the couch next to me. The pink bow in Raquel's hair that also matches her pink overalls, bounces along with her long brown pigtails as she shimmies her way onto the cushion.

"See this lady, mi Corazon?" I ask her gently, gesturing to Rachel's beautiful face on the crystal clear screen.

Raquel smiles and nods hurriedly. "She look like me, Mami!"

I wrap my arm around my daughter and pull her close to me. "She's your Mama."

My daughter tilts her head and raises her eyebrow just the way her Aunt Quinn taught her a few weeks ago.

"Mama?" Raquel reaches out to stroke the screen with her fingertips, tracing Rachel's cheekbones and across her lips.

"Si, bebe. Your Mama."

And for the first time since the night in the hospital that cost me the only woman I will ever love, I begin to sing to my daughter, my beautiful little girl.

"_If I had no more time,  
__No more time left to be here…"_

**AN: That concludes Like You'll Never See Me Again. Thank you for reading, and your reviews are appreciated.**


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